"The Poison of Subjectivism"

In what seems to be an addition to "Mere Christianity" Lewis writes about the flawed modern view of morality and the problems that it poses. Before our modern times, "no thinker of the first rank ever doubted that our judgements of value were rational judgements or that what they discovered was objective. It was taken for granted that in temptation passion was opposed, not to some sentiment, but to reason". Today's modern view of morality is that truth is not absolute, that there is no set right and wrong. "It does not believe that value judgements are really judgements at all...[t]o say that a thing is good is merely to express our feeling about it; and our feeling about it is the feeling we have been socially conditioned to have". That is how Lewis explains the view of morality that is without concern accepted by most people. The problem with this is that first of all, it does not make sense because "the whole attempt to jettison traditional values as something subjective and to substitute a new scheme of values for them is wrong. It is like trying to lift yourself by your own coat collar". Secondly, it is poisonous because "[i]f we once admit that what God means by "goodness" is sheerly different from what we judge to be good, there is no difference left between pure religion and devil worship". When we treat morality as as relative, changing the standards so freely, with no comparison to a previously instilled standard, then there is really no way of telling the difference between what is good and what is evil. Lewis uses the example of religion and devil worship, but any example would be valid. Likewise, there would be no way to differentiate the difference between murder and love. Do you get the idea of what Lewis is warning us about?

The most important reason that Lewis is warning us about subjectivism is, in my opinion that until we get rid of it, and base our morality on an established standard, there can only be limited progress in our world. For "[i]f good is a fixed point, it is at least possible that we should get nearer and nearer to it; but if the terminus is as mobile as the train, how can the train progress towards it? Our ideas of the good may change, but they cannot change either for the better or the worse if there is no absolute and immutable good to which they can recede". We spend so much time wondering why the world is in so much pain, and many blame God for it, when the problem lies on Earth. We will never improve the world, we will never reach the train station when it is moving just as fast as the train. First, this needs to be realized, and then we need to figure out exactly what the moral law is and where it comes from. Only then can we begin to properly redeem our fallen world.

Unfortunately, because of man's sinful desires, the moral law is something that will likely never be encouraged in our world. Even if it was, the law would still be broken because we are all sinners. But think, if we were conditioned to live by the moral law, where right and wrong are objective rather than subjectivism, we would be headed in a much better direction. After all, "a philosophy which does not accept value as eternal and objective can lead us only to ruin".